Multilingual pedagogies draw on learners' prior language knowledge and can offer considerable advantages in learning the target language. Yet language instruction, particularly in foreign language learning contexts, does not often capitalise on the multilingual assets of learners. The goal of this study is to understand what determines the…

This article argues that the concept of affordances as put forward by James J. Gibson can make a major contribution to our understanding of multilingualism. It can throw some light on multilingualism in general as well as on specific aspects like successful and unsuccessful transfer, the challenges involved in teaching for multilingualism,…

The present study was developed to assess teachers' beliefs on (1) the role of prior language knowledge in language learning; (2) the perceived usefulness of language knowledge in modern society; and (3) the teaching practices to be used with multilingual students. Subjects were 176 secondary schoolteachers working in Italy (N = 103), Austria (N =…